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SO is this good news or bad news for affiliate marketers?
I know if the store by me closes, I would be more apt to shop even more online than drive farther.
STORE CLOSINGS AND LAYOFFS: By the end of Dec. 2008

If you have gift cards, hurry up and use them!!

Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.
A company spokeswoman said the company hasn't revealed which stores will be
shuttered. It will let the stores that will close this fiscal year know
over the next month

Eddie Bauer to close more stores.
Eddie Bauer has already closed 27 shops in the first quarter and plans to
close up to two more outlet stores by the end of the year.

Cache closing stores.
Women's retailer Cache announced that it is closing 20 to 23 stores this
year.

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines closing 150 stores nationwide.
The owner of retailers Lane Bryant , Fashion Bug, Catherines Plus Sizes will
close about 150 underperforming stores this year. The company hasn't
provided a list of specific store closures and can't say when it will offer
that info, spokeswoman Brooke Perry said today.

Talbots, J. Jill closing stores.
About a month ago, Talbots announced that it will be shuttering all 78 of
its kids and men 's stores. Now t he company says it will close another 22
underperforming stores. The 22 stores will be a mix of Talbots women's and
J Jill, another chain it owns. The closures will occur this fiscal year,
according to a company press release.

Gap Inc. closing 85 stores
In addition to its namesake chain, Gap also owns Old Navy and Banana
Republic . The company said the closures - all planned for fiscal 2008 -
will be weighted toward the Gap brand.

Foot Locker to close 140 stores
In the company press release and during its conference call with analysts
today, it did not specify where the future store closures - all planned in
fiscal 2008 - will be. The company could not be immediately reached for
comment

Wickes Furniture is going out of business and closing all of its stores.
Wickes, a 37-year-old retailer that targets middle-income customers, filed
for bankruptcy protection last month.

Goodbye Levitz / BOMBAY - closed already
The furniture retailer, which is
going out of business. Levitz first announced it was going out of business
and closing all 76 of its stores in December. The retailer dates back to
1910 when Richard Levitz opened his first furniture store in Lebanon, PA. In
the 1960s, the warehouse/showroom concept brought Levitz to the forefront of
the furniture industry. The local Levitz closures will follow the shutdown
of Bombay.

Zales, Piercing Pagoda closing stores
The owner of Zales and Piercing Pagoda previously said it plans to close 82
stores by Jul y 31. Today, it announced that it is closing another 23
underperforming stores. The company said it's not providing a list of
specific store closures. Of the 105 locations planned for closure, 50 are
kiosks and 55 are stores.

Disney Store owner has the right to close 98 stores.
The Walt Disney Company announced it acquired about 220 Disney Stores from subsidiaries of The Children's Place Retail Stores. The exact number of stores acquired will depend on negotiations with landlords. Those subsidiaries of Children's Place filed for bankruptcy protection in late March. In the news release, Disney said it has also obtained the right to close about 98 Disney Stores in the U.S. The press release didn't list those stores.

Home Depot store closings
Nearly 7+ months after its chief executive said there were no plans to cut
the number of its core retail stores, The Home Depot Inc. announced
Thursday that it is shuttering 15 of them amid a slumping US. economy and
housing market. The move will affect 1,300 employees. It is the first
time!
the world's largest home improvement store chain has ever closed a flagship
store for performance reasons. Its shares rose almost 5 percent.
The Atlanta-based company said the underperforming U.S. stores being closed
represent less than 1 percent of its existing stores. They will be
shuttered within the next two months .

CompUSA (CLOSED) clarifies details on store closings Any extended
warranties purchased for products through CompUSA will be honored by a
third-party provider, Assurant Solutions. Gift cards, rain checks, and
rebates purchased prior to December 12 can be redeemed at any time during
the final sale. For those who have a gadget currently in for service with
CompUSA, the repair will be completed and the gadget will be returned to
owners.

Macy's - 9 stores

Movie Gallery< BR>160 stores will close as part of reorganization plan to
exit bankruptcy.
The video rental company plans to close 400 of 3,500 Movie Gallery and
Hollywood Video stores in addition to the 520 locations the video rental
chain closed last fall.

Pep Boys - 33 stores

Sprint Nextel - 125 retail locations
New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse appears to have inherited a company bleeding
subscribers by the thousands, and will now officially be dropping the ax on
4,000 employees and 125 retail locations. Amid the loss of 639,000 postpaid
customers in the fourth quarter, Sprint will be cutting a total of 6.7% of
its work force (following the 5,000 layoffs last year) and 8% of
company-owned brick-and-mortar stores, while remaining mute on other rumors
that it will consolidate its headquarters in Kansas. Sprint Nextel shares
are down $2.89, or nearly 25%, at the time of this writing.

J. C. Penney, Lowe's and Office Depot are scaling back

Ethan Allen Interiors - The company announced plans to close 12 of 300+
stores in an effort to cut costs.

Wilsons the Leather Experts - 158 stores

Pacific Sunwear will close its 154 Demo stores after a review of strategic
alternatives for the urban-apparel brand Seventy-four underperforming Demo
stores closed last May.

Sharper Image: The company recently filed for bankruptcy protection and
announced that 90 of its 184 stores are closing. The retailer will still
operate 94 stores to pay off debts, but 90 of these stores have performed
poorly and also may close.

Bombay Company
The company unveiled plans to close all 384 U.S.-based Bombay Company
stores. The company's online storefront has discontinued operations.

KB Toys posted a list of 356 stores that it is closing around the United
States as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. To see the list of store
closings, go to the KB Toys Information web site, and click on Press
Information

Dillard's to Close More Stores
Dillard's Inc. said it will continue to focus on closing underperforming
stores, reducing expenses and improving its merchandise in 2008. At the
company's annual shareholder meeting, CEO William Dillard II said the
company will close another six underperforming stores this year.

SO is this good news or bad news for affiliate marketers?
I know if the store by me closes, I would be more apt to shop even more online than drive farther.

Both. I agree that more will be willing to shop online if they have to travel further to their favorite retailer, especially with higher gas prices. Unfortunately with the layoffs and instability that's associated with this many retail closings, consumers may be more cautious and less willing/able to spend.

-rematt

"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." - Richard Nixon

I think overall there might be a little decline in shopping, economy/election year. So for affiliate marketers, overall maybe a little decline. But there are going to be affiliate marketers having great years, better than the last. That's going to vary.

For the merchants, can be good in that they're shutting down underperforming stores, can focus more on what's working. For those going out of business, it happens.

Quite a few closing down have operated affiliate marketing programs. Does remind me of the .Com Bomb days where you had to go to F**kedcompany.com to find who was most likely going down the tubes from insider (employee) whistleblowers. Those gathering up their plants and desk/wall photos were inclined to rant there as they were heading out the door.

DOW down below 10,000 already today and falling as $700 BILLION might not be enough cash to plug the hole in the financial dike. Does anyone have a real grasp of how many $100.00 bills it takes to make a $700 BILLION bundle. Then throw in a 150 billion dollar sweatner to buy additional needed votes. wonder how many coupons it would take to save all these retailer's stores...?

Webmaster's... Mike and Charlie

"What have you done today to put real value into a referral click...from a shoppers viewpoint!"

mike- Maybe if congress wasn't so concerned with adding in tax breaks for the puerto rican film industry, etc., the dow would have responded better. JMO, it seems to be the same old same old. They want to respond in an emergency, but hey, no emergency is so great they don't have time to throw a buncha pork on the platter. Congressional greed is going to ruin this country.

As for how affiliates will do, heck, if you've built new sites and tried to add a page a day for the last year, you should see an increase. Maybe not new money - you're just controlling a larger % of the niches you are in.

Stores closing really suck for the employees working there, however people are still buying stuff. Went to our local target this weekend and it was packed to the gills. We were going to buy some shelving for a spare room we are organizing and ended up spending over $200 bucks on other stuff.

I will say though, many of the programs are are managing are seeing a lift, it "seems" people are buying more from home online than going to brick and mortars ... i think gas prices have fueled that trend as well.

My guess would be the biggest impact on affiliate marketing will be very "localized" -- i.e., if you happen to be making money with one of those merchants' affiliate programs, they may shut down their affiliate marketing programs, THEN it would impact your business.

I bet Andy's pretty on target about this one (no pun intended) -- people are still going to shop.

Personally, I don't do anything with the affiliate programs with any of those merchants so it probably won't impact me directly.

But store closings DO equal job losses and are NOT good for the nation as a whole, I would say.